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Kathakali dancer, music lover and distinguished technocrat K. Radhakrishnan assumed the office of chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) headquartered in the Karnataka capital today.

Dr Radhakrishnan, also from Kerala like his two immediate predecessors Madhavan Nair and K. Kasturirangan, will sit in the chairman's post from his earlier role as director of Thiruvananthapuram-based Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) where he began his career in 1971 as an avionics engineer.

As VSSC director for three years he led a 4,500 team half of them engineers and scientists; he was the key person in India's maiden moon mission Chandrayaan-1 and the PSLV C-11 launch vehicle. Under his leadership, five successful launches of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles (PSLV) were realised and 20 spacecraft, including Chandrayaan-1, were taken to the desired orbits precisely.

The Kerala University space technologist has impressive educational qualifications too: an MBA from IIM Bangalore and a PhD from IIT Kharagpur. Radhakrishnan has authored more than 55 publications, including 12 in reputed journals and eight in edited books.

An ISRO release says that he has held several decisive positions in the Department of Space and ISRO such as Project Director for setting up Regional Remote Sensing Service Centres (1987-89), Director of National Natural Resources Management System-Regional Remote Sensing Service Centres (1989-97), Director of Budget and Economic Analysis for entire ISRO (1987-97), Mission Director of Integrated Mission for Sustainable Development and Deputy Director of National Remote Sensing Agency (1997-2000).

A deeply religious man, he also had a short stint in the Ministry of Earth Sciences during 2000-05 as the founder Director of Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services and the first Project Director of Indian National Tsunami Warning System.

As the Director of National Remote Sensing Agency during 2005-08, Dr Radhakrishnan led NRSA to be the nerve centre of the ISRO's Disaster Management Support Programme by successfully institutionalising the 24X7 Decision Support Centre (DSC) at NRSA which provides space based inputs to various state and central government agencies during pre-disaster, disaster and post-disaster phases, in close coordination with the Ministry of Home Affairs.

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